August 5, 2024

“Olde fashioned” apple picking basket with first of the season Duchess drops

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today the rain came late in the evening in the form of two rolling thunderstorms, totaling a half inch. Conditions were fairly pleasant all day. We collected the Duchess drops, composted the funky ones and saved the good ones for tomorrow’s sauce.  Now is the time to check your summer apples daily. You can blink twice, and they’ll all be gone. We had a small plum crop this year, but a few trees have decent fruit. The oldest Purple Heart tree has a lot of plums which should be ready any day. It is outstanding fresh. 

August 3, 2024

First Yellow Transparent of the season, hand courtesy of Laura Sieger.

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today’s weather pattern seems to be becoming the standard for the season: rain early for a couple of hours, followed by warm, humid and partly cloudy. During the rain, I showed Alyssa how to use my identification key, and she was able to identify the Yellow Transparents that ripened a few days ago. The key has its challenges, and it’s currently undergoing a major revision, but it has been a huge help in doing hundreds of ID’s over the years.

Once the rain clouds left, we weeded in the nursery and planted a cover crop of buckwheat in the recently harvested garlic beds. The cover crop protects the bare soil and adds nutrients for next year.  Everyone—even Big Ag—seems to agree that bare soil doesn’t do anyone any good.

We also began a log-building project today. We cut two hemlocks and peeled them with our bark spuds—the bark is still slipping nicely—and then set up the basic framework for what will be an addition to one of the cabins on the farm. Living in a clearing carved out of the forest, we are surrounded with an excellent source of logs for building. We also have a grade A supply of firewood, trellis material, tool handles, bean poles, garden stakes, pea-fence material and, of course, endless compost poles. We also get to breathe a blend of air, brought to us every morning by the hemlock trees as well as the pine, spruce, fir, maple, oak, beech, birch and, of course, a whole lot of apple trees. Not only is blended cider delicious, blended air is the best. Oh those blends!

August 2, 2024

The garlic crew harvesting this year’s crop

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Finally we had a sunny day so we could harvest the garlic and the wheat. The wheat could have been cut a week ago, but we’ve been getting rain nearly every day, and we need dry weather.  So five of us dashed up to Finley Lane and harvested both. We brought in an expert crew from Colorado to help us. The garlic looks great. The wheat is beautiful. 

July 31, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

I gave a long tour of the orchards to an old friend and her husband who traveled to Maine from California. Marcia was my fifth-grade girlfriend in 1962, sixty-two years ago. Neither of us has changed a bit! Cammy and I had visited her and her husband, John, years ago on a trip out west. It was fun to see them again. Fortunately the orchards and nursery look beautiful at the moment, although the BRC looks about as mind-bogglingly jungle-esque as ever.  The fireblight is gone (Hooray!), and there is enough fruit in strategic locations so that the light crop looks heavier than it really is. Sometimes it feels like we should be working in the orchards, not giving tours. But, why not? If we’re going to change the world, we need to take time to give presentations and show folks around when they come to visit. Plus, it gives us a chance to see what better get done tomorrow.

Other big news today: the first perfectly ripe apple dropped two days ago. Can you guess what it was? The summer apples are coming.

Bunk and friend Marcia by the grape arbor

July 30, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Night time spraying Hewe's Virginia Crab at Finley Lane

Today Laura cut fireblight out of the orchards down around the farm. Although most trees were spared, a few have gotten hit pretty hard; and after the cutting, they looked grim. It was a tough to do, but it had to be done.  There’s more fire blight to cut out, but hopefully the worst is over.

In the evening we sprayed the fruiting trees on the farm and up at Finley Lane with “Monterey Garden Spray.” MGS is a spinosad which is derived from soil bacteria and is toxic to many insects including Apple Maggot Fly (Rhagoletis pomonella) - aka Railroad Worm - which appears in the orchard in July and can do a lot of damage to the fruit. The commercial name for the spray is Entrust. It is a powerful tool for the organic orchardist, and it must be used with great caution because it is toxic to bees. We use it sparingly for that reason and don’t begin to spray until after the bees have retired for the evening. Last night we finished spraying at 9:00.  It was tricky spraying the last trees in near-total darkness.  

July 29, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Ancient Baldwin tree on Mount Desert Island

Today I took a drive downeast to Mt. Desert Island (MDI) where I gave a noon-time talk to a group in Bar Harbor, followed by a visit to one of the oldest apple trees on MDI.  It is a huge and impressive Baldwin which dates to the mid-19th century. 

Laura was on the farm today, weeding trees up in the Finley Lane Orchard and making herb teas to spray on the trees once they ferment: Comfrey, Monarda, Nettles, Chives, Horsetail and Willow.

I also pulled out my books and apple key and identified an apple sent to me from Pennsylvania. It is known locally at the “July Apple.” Although the specimens were marginally representative, I believe the apple is “Early Harvest”.  Let the ID season begin.

July 27, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Fall Webworm on our Kaleidoscope ornamental crabapple tree

Sometimes it appears as though the orchard is just an endless set of challenges, one right after another. One minor challenge is fall webworm (Hyphantria cunea). Although it might be more accurately called “summer” webworm, the webs—or nests—are difficult to miss. They look like faint whitish-tan cotton candy—or maybe superfine fish net—enveloping a section of a branch or even several branches on apples, cherry, ash, willow, oak, birch, elm and other deciduous trees and bushes. Fall webworm typically arrives in the orchard and forest in mid-July and sticks around the rest of the summer. Because the apple trees—and others—are already fully leafed out and advanced in their annual cycle, fall webworm will rarely kill a tree. The nests are unsightly and can make picking fruit a drag if the webs cover branches of fruit. You can live with it—as we mostly do—or spray Dipel (BT) on the trees when the webs appear. Today Laura was working on the farm and “spot-sprayed” the fall webworm with Dipel using a backpack sprayer.  They’ll be back, and we may spray again—or not.

July 25, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Japanese Beetles on our grapes. Where’s the bucket?

A bit about Japanese Beetles (Popillia japonica). Native to Japan and introduced to the US in the early 1900’s, Japanese Beetles are no where to be found some years and a major pest in others. This year they are a major pest. They are feeding right now. A couple of weeks ago, in a panic, a friend sent me a photograph of one of his apple trees. The leaves were “skeletonized.”  At first I wasn’t sure what was up. Then a couple days later I was in our orchard and immediately realized what had happened to his tree: Japanese Beetles.  Although they won’t kill an apple tree, they do make a mess of it and don’t make it easy for much photosynthesis. They also cause havoc on grapes, plums, roses and raspberries. They are even eating our blueberries this year. When you go to squish them they fly away or drop to the ground and hide. But there is a way to outsmart them. They “go to sleep” right out in the open in the evening and don’t become active again until mid-morning. We position a jar or bucket under the foliage where they’re sleeping and gently jiggle. They drop conveniently into the container. We put a couple of inches of water in the bucket with a little detergent. That does the trick.  Out in the orchard, the Goldenrod is now beginning to flower. The Bee Balm is spectacular. So many flowers!

July 24, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Old barn in Somerset, England, with ancient cider press against the far wall. Photographed by JPB in 2011.

Today we got more rain. We’ll take it, especially when combined with more moderate temperatures. We had planned to spray Dipel on the webworms that have invaded the orchard, but that will have to wait. Laura arrived early ready to spray, but instead got to work on the computer and the DIRK (Data Identification Research Key) project. Unfortunately, fire blight is back in the orchard, and we’ll be cutting it out again as soon as we can.

Yesterday I attended a two-hour zoom call with fourteen apple historians and scientists from the UK and four of us from the US. Our objective was to discuss identification of historic apples through DNA profiling and how to collaborate with one another and transition to the newer SNP process. Their challenges are similar to the ones we’ve faced here in the US as we’ve developed collaborations with one another across the country.  One of those attending was John Teiser who I have worked with for the past twelve years to import UK historic cider apples through the USDA APHIS program (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service). To date we’ve imported about two dozen, many of which have been released and are now growing in our test orchard at Finley Lane.  When we go to the UK this fall, we will see many of those who attended yesterday’s meeting, most for the first time in person.

July 22, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

The two pronged Magna Grecia fork hoe

Today the temperatures were in the high 70s . The orchard is dry and could use an inch or two of rain - perhaps tomorrow. The webworms are out in full force. Time to load up the Dipel. The Bee Balm (Monarda) is approaching full bloom. The bees are humming. The Queen Ann’s Lace is six feet tall and approaching full bloom.

We have hundreds of seedings growing up through the sod all over the orchard and nursery which we often topwork to known cultivars. We dig out the sod around their small-diameter trunks to create an open space about 2-3 feet in diameter. This enables us to check for borers, fertilize as needed, mulch with chips etc. The tool we use for this job is the Magna Grecia hoe. It’s a hand-forged, two-pronged “fork hoe” made in Italy, and, as far as we know, was long long ago a common tool among farmers and orchardists. The prongs are quite long: 10”. The hoe blade is 4”. It is an excellent tool for turning over soil and prying up even the most stubborn sod. We have two of them, each with a long (58”) ash handle we made on the shaving horse. The tool has incredible leverage so you have to pry with some respect. You can snap the handle if you really lay into it. You can purchase cheap versions at Home Depot and probably on Amazon. But beware!  They are far inferior to the real thing. 

July 21, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Our Red Haven peach tree, freshly mowed and thinned today.

Today the temperatures were much more acceptable - barely 80 degrees with a few light showers in the early morning. As always there was a lot of weeding to do; no sooner do we arrive at the end of the rows of young trees than the weeds are popping up in the rows where we started. At least for today the nursery looks great. We also updated and replaced missing tags in the orchard. Hard to document what’s going on if the tag is gone.

In the afternoon we thinned the fruit on several peach trees. Our magnificent old Red Haven tree is approaching twenty-five years old and produces a great deal of fruit.  The other peach trees are younger and are producing more fruit each year.  Most peach trees don’t grow to be very old, especially in colder climates. Every year or two we plant a couple of new ones to replace the inevitable victims of cold winter temperatures. We try to thin the peach crop as close to July 4th as possible.  First we remove diseased and damaged fruit. Then we thin the remaining fruit to about 4-6” apart. We try to leave only 3-4 fruits on a branch so the branches don’t get too heavy and break, but sometimes we leave a few extra because it’s hard to discard perfect looking peaches. This year is not a banner year for peaches, but it does look we’ll be eating our fill in August.

July 15, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Japanese style hand-held sickle

All the weeding of the young trees around the old house and the BRC is complete. The farm is suffering from the heat wave, now in its eighth day. Leaves are curling on apple trees and bean plants, and tomato flowers are dropping off the plants before setting fruit. It appears as though we won’t get relief any time soon. Still it’s great to be out with the trees, checking the trunks for borers and trimming back the comfrey, blackberries and bracken ferns that are threatening to take over the BRC. I crawl into the jungle engulfing each tree with my Japanese sickle in hand and hope that I’ll find my way out sometime before dark. The sickle has a very stiff thick blade that attaches to the handle at a right angle. These sickles are not easy to find for sale (try Hardwick & Sons), and they are sometimes not easy to find in the orchard either. If you aren’t careful you might bury it under a massive pile of weeds, never to be seen again. Cammy painted the handles of our tools bright yellow.  We recommend you do the same.  

July 13, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Topworked graft with compromised foliage

Today I spent time in the Nursery weeding the two year old trees that were grafted in 2023.  Keeping on top of the weeds in the nursery is a key summer activity as weeds can overwhelm the young trees in a week or two. I was aided by my friend Bill Kelley who was up for the weekend from Boston.  Despite the heat, we got a lot done while solving all the world’s problems in the process. I’m concerned about the young growth on a number of the newly topworked trees. Some leaves are turning brown while others are curling. This does not appears to be fire blight. My best guess is that it’s the result of a combination of a lot of abnormal heat combined with a lot of moisture. I do not think it has anything to do with the quality of the scionwood or the grafting.  

July 12, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Culvers Root (Veronicastrum virginicum)

Laura and I sprayed all the fruiting apples and plums throughout the farm this morning. One tank (100 gallons) was enough. The recipe is below.  “Culver’s Root” flowers are now opening. What a spectacular plant! We planted it several years ago at Finley, and it is establishing itself, albeit slowly. The Queen Ann’s Lace (Daucus carota) is now in full bloom, and there are thousands of plants up at Finley Lane (and all over central Maine). Queen Ann’s Lace which is botanically identical to our orange garden carrot derives from selections made over the past few hundred years. Laura weeded and neemed our neighbor, Stevie Haskell’s orchard this afternoon. His orchard contains a number of valuable apple cultivars. Bunk continues to weed and neem in the BRC and around the farm. 

Todays spray: MilStop (for sooty blotch and fly speck) -2.5lb, Regalia -1 quart, EcoSwing -1 pint, CYD-X -1.5oz, Surround -25lb, Cal Plus (calcium) -1 quart, Manganese 1- pint, Dipel -1 lb (Many webs appearing this week)

July 10, 2024

First Bee Balm flowers (Monarda fistulosa) with young apple tree in the background, July 10, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today I again beat the heat and went up to Finley Lane in the early morning to weed apple trees for a few hours. Later I returned and painted neem on another 80 trees. The scything, weeding and neeming apples at Finley is now complete. The pears still require scything and weeding, but that can wait for now. The heat was mitigated somewhat today by a light breeze and overcast skies; however, it was still very hot. Today the first Bee Balm flowers opened. We planted a few Bee Balm plants several years ago and now we have thousands; it has seeded itself throughout the entire orchard. The five hives of bees are in heaven.

July 9, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today I slipped out of the house early to continue scything before it got too hot. I was able to finish scything around all—or nearly all—the apple trees. Yesterday in the heat there were no audible birds songs. Today was a different story; I was serenaded by the chirps of dozens of birds. Perhaps they were happy to have the temperature at least a few degrees below 70F.  I was reminded of the old English folk tune, Country Boy: “I like to rise when the sun she rises early in the morning. I like to hear those small birds singing merrily along the laylum…”  (What is laylum? ) The chorus ends, “and hurrah for the life of a country boy for to ramble in the new mown hay!” 

Elisha Hutchinson was an orchardist (and mower) who died in the 1940’s. You can read about him in Bunk’s book in the chapter, “The Boy With No Name.”

July 8, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

We worked all day in the high heat up at Finley. I scythed until about 4 PM when I had to quit and go lie down. Somehow Laura hung in there for another hour and completed another row of neeming and weeding.  Seth the bee-keeper came by to check on the bees, most of whom were out of their hives and massing on the hive-walls. It was even too hot for them. Olivia, our next-door neighbor with the awesome Golden Russet tree I grafted about 25 years ago, stopped by to get some neem oil and a lesson in apple genetics. She wants to plant a bunch of apple trees next spring. We hope that all of them will come from Finley.

Over the weekend we went to the famous Thuja (aka Thuya) garden on Mt Desert Island. The beautiful garden is laid out on the site of a former apple orchard with only one tree left.  Being a big fan of orange and green, I couldn’t resist these Zinnias. 

July 5, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Every borer checker needs the help of a good borer-sniffing dog.

This morning we worked in the BRC, the orchard fondly referred to as Jurassic Park by some and the multi-factorial synergy orchard by others. What does “BRC” stand for? Perhaps “Breathe, Rest, Center” or “Begin Running in Circles”. So many possibilities. In the afternoon we continued to weed and dig out borers up at Finley Lane Summer orchard care (scything, weeding, borer check and neeming) is a huge job, but it gives us the chance to examine every tree - something that merits being done every year. For the second day in a row the weather cooperated, and it was a delightful day in the orchard.  

July 4, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today we scythed two rows of apples in the Finley Lane Orchard. The morning conditions were perfect: not too hot and the grass was slightly wet from an early morning shower. In the afternoon Laura and Alyssa weeded trees and cut out borers. Cammy and I painted Neem Oil on the trunks of four rows of trees and many trees in the nursery. It was  busy and productive day at Finley Lane.

Two scythes with handmade snathes, ready for action at Finley.

July 3, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Bunk on the field with the “Green Monster” on his shirt and in the background

I did a lot of scything and weeding in the BRC and Finley Lane orchards. Cammy painted Neem oil on the nursery trees up at Finley.  The Neem oil either smothers or deters the borers from laying eggs on the trunks of young trees.  We not sure which although it does work. It’s an annual ritual.

Another annual ritual is a trip to Fenway Park, home of the fabulous Boston Sad Rox. This past weekend I got to see them play twice at Fenway. Not exactly an apple orchard, but lots of really really green grass, perfectly manicured and of course the huge and mighty 37 ft high wall—the Green Monstah. What a treat!